


Kursed Beyond Redemption

by TonyLupo



Category: Star Fox Series
Genre: Action/Adventure, Cerinia mention, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Kursed timeline, Non-Graphic Violence, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Redemption, Science Fiction, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:28:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29083923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TonyLupo/pseuds/TonyLupo
Summary: How does a good girl go bad? This is Krystal's story on how she became Kursed. Meanwhile Fox is trying to get by, chasing small time scum without his old team and without his former love Krystal. But then a new threat emerges and he finds clues to her past. Only she can help, but can he track her down, and who's side would Kursed take if he does?
Relationships: Krystal (Star Fox)/Original Character(s), Krystal/Fox McCloud, Panther Caroso/Krystal





	Kursed Beyond Redemption

**Author's Note:**

> As the title gives away, this is obviously based on a particularly wretched ending of Command. How does a good girl go so bad? Then again, how would you feel if you were turned into a side character in what was meant to be your game, then fighting alongside someone who for so long is incapable of expressing their feelings, and finally finding love only to have your relationship thrown to the wolves as a sacrifice for longer gameplay? Maybe you’d be a little Kursed too?
> 
> This is a touchup of a story I've been publishing on FFN. For anyone who's been following it there, the main storyline won't change (much). I only intend on bringing it up to my current writing standard and plug some plot holes, more so in the first half.
> 
> I've rated it M although there is no explicit sexual content (not yet anyway), nor really graphic violence, because I do touch on some pretty dark thoughts and themes. This includes the rewritten prologue, which I think it fits the Kursed character though. Reader discretion is advised.
> 
> Cover art kindly provided by Hazelwolf @ Fur Affinity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Present Time - Quango System

She was running down into the heart of the bunker, choosing the way through the twists and turns with little hesitation.

The damp and dimly lit corridors had concrete walls lined with steel doors and exposed overhead wiring. A generator was humming somewhere in the cold and glum place. The corridor ended at a T-intersection, and she slowed down, silently creeping forward step by step. She _reached out with her sixth sense_ and could _touch_ the mind of her mark behind the heavy blast doors straight ahead, but she could also _sense_ two more beings, one on either ends of the perpendicular corridor. Each of them were focussed on their weapons, which were ready to fire.

She reached down to the holsters on her hips, and toggled the switches from stun to kill. Then she unclipped a percussion bomb from her belt and threw it ahead of her. Just as it went off, she closed her eyes, drew her blasters and leapt forward. With the flashes still going off, she held out the weapons to her sides and pulled the triggers, using her _instincts_ to guide her aim. The thought patterns of one mind were snuffled out immediately, while the other was overwhelmed with pain. She kept firing until the second mind’s thoughts were incoherent.

Only then did she open her eyes. To her left lay a body wearing camouflage and a helmet with a blaster hole through the visor. To her right lay another person in black uniform with smoking blaster marks on its chest, the spots on its furry face giving it aways as a leopard. It moaned and squirmed on the cold floor, vivid images of important memories flashing through its mind. She raised her arm and aimed the blaster at the feline’s head.

She took no pleasure in killing, but didn’t fancy being killed either, and in this business leaving loose ends equalled suicide. The injured enemy could recover and attack her when she least expected. She pondered stunning the leopard, but she’d already taken out most of this band of criminals, and was going after the leader next. There were no medics around on this deserted planet, so who was going to look after the injured anyway?

Her finger pulled the trigger one more time.

After patting down the body, she found the keycard she was after, and walked over to the blast door. _Reaching out_ again, she sensed _two_ minds, including the mark. She wasn’t close enough to read his thoughts clearly yet, but the emotions were tangible. She had expected some trepidation, but there was mostly curiosity and annoyance, perhaps at his guards’ incompetence. She wasn’t faced by his confidence. In this star system and especially in this line of work, confidence wasn’t an advantage. It was a requirement, while overconfidence was a flaw, one that she could use to her benefit.

The gravity of the situation was weighing on her shoulders though. It was her biggest bounty yet, and she desperately needed the credits. Her spaceship was in a sorry state, with some mismatched body panels and all, and on arrival she’d found that the ground proximity system had failed. That made the landing on this desolate place rather sketchy, especially in the meteor crater that was barely illuminated by the white dwarf star the planet orbited. But it was more than credits at stake. This was her chance to build a reputation, and secure future income.

She scanned his mind again, detecting thoughts of the weapon he had at hand, but yet not aiming, so there was no point running through the door with blasters firing. He might get her first. But she also picked up dirty thoughts about his female company. A chauvinist male, but she could use that. She dropped her cloak off her shoulders, knowing that she did have an attractive body. Then she put the blasters back on her hips and pulled a short staff from its holster on her back. She checked the gemstone in the centre of its tip, and found that there was _some_ power left, but not much. She had very few spares left, and none on her person, but the treasured weapon was still her life insurance. After putting it back, she swiped the card in front of a panel, and the heavy blast words slid apart with a drawn-out hiss.

In the middle of the large room sat a huge lion on a bare metal chair, like a dystopian king on his throne. He was built like a tank, with biceps the size of most mens’ thighs, and a big black-tipped mane surrounding his head. He was clad in oversized army boots, camouflage pants and a vest that showed fur art down his chest as well as all over his arms. His right hand was in close proximity to a heavy blaster laying on a table beside him, while his left brought a glass to his mouth, which drained the amber contents. A plate of half-eaten food rested in his lap, and a barely clad female lynx sat on the floor massaging his feet. The feline looked young, just barely an adult.

“Go get another one!” he said and tossed the empty glass to the girl at his feet, who caught it, obeyed and slipped away through a door in the back wall. “And hurry up, tramp. This won’t take long, and I’m thirsty.”

The bounty hunter linked into the lion’s mind, and slowly walked into the room, swaying her hips slightly to appeal to his desires.

 _‘What the…? A vixen?’_ he thought, completely unaware of his mind being read. She stepped close enough to the light so he could see her properly. He eyed off her black leather boots and pants, and the rather small black leather top that didn’t do much to hide her curves. He frowned a little bit at her arm bands and braces. _‘Not bad! Young enough and kinda pretty apart from that scar on her face and the chip in her ear, but hey, that’s just character. But how the hell did she get past my guards?’_

He checked her out, and she received an image of her own face framed by hair, a violent shade of violet, and her vivid sea-green eyes glaring back at him. He put his meal down on the table and belched before he spoke. “Are you here for my entertainment?”

“This place could certainly do with some livening up,” she replied and scrunched up her muzzle, as she looked around the room at the grayscale and sparse decor. There were an array of security monitors around the place, some desks, various weapons hung on the bare concrete walls, a table with cards scattered on it, and toppled over chairs. A large bed was visible through the doorway to a back room. “But no, I’m here for business.”

“So what are you selling? Or rather, how much are you?”

She chuckled. “No, none of that kind! You’re worth money. Barely enough to come to this ass end of the galaxy to drag yours out, but with a bonus if you’re alive. A girl’s gotta live, you know.”

 _‘Yeah, I bet she’s spending a fortune on that blue fur dye. But a bloody bounty hunter? That little damsel?’_ This time his thoughts were lined with a feeling of surprise. “You’re funny! Sure you’re not an entertainer? Do you dance?”

Faster than his size would give him credit for, he drew the blaster and fired a few shots. Wisps of smoke rose from the floor around the vixen’s feet where the blasts had hit. _Sensing_ his intentions, she hadn’t even moved, still glaring at him. He aimed higher and pulled the trigger again, but this time she had already leapt out of the way, and the blast ricocheted dangerously around the room.

“Say, why does a big, strong guy like you need guns against a little girl like me?”

The insult annoyed him, as she had intended. He stood up, took off his vest and threw it aside, showing off all his muscles and masculinity.

 _‘That’s it! Go ahead and underestimate me,’_ thought the vixen to herself. _‘You men always do.’_

He walked up to her—standing two heads taller including the mane—and stared down at her.

“You bloody dance!”

Again, with surprising speed his left fist struck out and hit thin air. _‘What the…?’_ He followed through with his right, but still connected with nothing, while the vixen landed a blow in his stomach as she ducked past him. He found it no more than an annoying peck, which concerned the vixen, who hoped she hadn’t bitten off more than she could chew. He spun around, fists flying, but finding no target. She weaved, ducked and leaped, since _his thoughts_ were giving away every move before he made them.

“Stand still!” he roared and lunged forward with arms stretched out to grab her, but she slid through his legs, kicking upwards into his backside, and he crashed headfirst into a wall. His rage assaulted her sixth sense, and for the first time she could feel herself panicking slightly. She had to end this fast. He turned around but this time she came at him first, barrelling two feet first and kicked him in the chest, so he crashed back into the wall. Still, it was only just hard enough to hurt his ego.

“Enough of this!” He practically bounced off the wall, and delivered a haymaker which caught the vixen on her muzzle. She yelped in pain, and scrambled backward, while his other paw reached for her with claws out. They ripped into the skin on her upper arm, but did not find enough purchase to contain her. Her armband came off in his paw, and puzzled he looked at the white tattoo in the blue pelt. She used the distraction to shuffle backwards, and pull the staff from her back, which immediately extended in her hands. Before he could attack again, a crimson orb of energy flew out of the staff and felled him to the floor.

He was dazed but not completely knocked out. The vixen pulled out a syringe from a pocket on her belt, jumped on him as fast as she could, and jammed it into his neck. His arms flailed about, found the syringe and pulled it out, as she desperately crawled away from him. She could _sense_ his thoughts swimming as the sedative kicked in, and soon the mighty lion was laying still on the floor, only his chest slowly rising and falling.

There was still a witness, and she could _feel_ the presence of that young lynx in the back room. She still had to take care of that, but first she had to catch her breath. Then she had to get her bounty out of here without mishaps, before she could collect her much needed reward. The lion _was_ worth more alive than dead, but it would have been so much easier to just kill him.

Still sitting on the cold floor, she looked at the claw marks on her arm, the seeping liquid colouring her blue fur a dark purple. There was a taste of blood and something loose in her mouth, so she spat it out. One of her own teeth landed on the concrete floor. She really had to be more careful—her sixth sense didn’t make her invincible—or she’d end up losing her life instead. Yeah, because she lived such a rich and purposeful life. She stared at the tooth, which hadn’t been sunk into a piece of proper meat for months, and never would again.

She was sick and tired of constantly chasing small jobs, sick of spending most of what she earned on keeping her ship flying, sick of living on bland food preserves and protein shakes, and sick of sleeping in her ship’s cockpit or in best case a cheap ’n dirty motel room.

_‘How did it come to this?’_

It was in these moments, when the endorphins receded after the hunt, that the unwelcome memories kept creeping back. They were the memories of a girl with another life in a distant system many years ago. That girl had been kind and curious. She had fallen in love, but had been betrayed. She had saved lives like a heroine, but had been called a traitor. That girl had been naive and weak.

But in this system, where it was hard for a man to make a living, and much more so for a woman, there was something infinitely more important than love. It was called survival. So she had had to become Kursed, who was so strong because Kursed didn’t love, didn’t feel and didn’t care. Kursed could survive because she was skilled and fearless.

_‘Damn you, memories! Go away. I don’t need you.’_


End file.
